What we Know of Happiness

Here are some of the facts I would like to share about happiness:

-The lack of money will make you unhappy but more money after a certain point will not make you happier. If you cannot be happy with a million dollars, maybe it is time to ask whether you can ever be happy — even with a hundred million dollars?

-Higher Education or Higher IQ will not make you happier. It does seem that much of the results of a higher education serves to make us unhappy. Is ignorance bliss? Maybe the more we know, the more we become convinced we cannot be happy unless we are successful. It may be that we are asking the wrong question. Why not instead think that we cannot be successful unless we are happy?

-Being young does not make you happier. It seems people from 65 to 74 are happier than people from 20 to 24, and also less prone to dark moods. Those people who have aged must have known that 90% of their life’s worries never did come true … and oh, many of them must have thought — if I only made an earlier decision to be happy…….. Well, it is never too late to be happy.

-Watching more TV makes you less happier. These do tend to be supported by numbers, but I am not sure which cause what. Maybe, happy people watch less TV.

-Married People are happier than Singles. I am inclined to conclude the same thing, maybe it is the other way around – happier people have more inclination to get married.

- Strong Religious faith definitely lifts the spirit. I think being able to sense a higher purpose than fulfilling our wants and needs gives us a stronger urge to move forward.

- Friends and Family. And a commitment to share and enjoy with them. Isn’t that what life is all about?

Self Knowledge Leading to Self Improvement

I just came from a two day conference in which I noticed how hard people network and try to get people to notice their companies and their capabilities. It seems that we all are deathly afraid that we would pass through life without being noticed or appreciated.

For instance, I have seen people who have spent hundreds of hours trying to sell their skills, which have hardly improved the last five years. I am thinking maybe they would be more successful if they have focused rather on improving that skill or product.

If there is one thing that is true in the 21st century is that communication barriers are so down that it is hardly almost impossible that a good man, or a good story/product will ever stay unnoticed – at least for long with reasonable amount of marketing.

Indeed I know dozens of people who had the opportunity, but whose execution skills fall short to capitalize on opportunities. On the other hand, I can’t recall that there ever was a good man with real skills that really stood out who stayed undiscovered and unrewarded for long. Notice how Google went to be a leader in search engines. It was almost unknown prior to 1999, and it hardly advertised. People simply noticed that it returned better results, and start to shift to it. Now it handles hundreds of millions of queries everyday.

Of course, hands will raise up and says, you didn’t know me. But then we overrate ourselves, and maybe, just maybe we have to tell ourselves that we may not be as good as we think ourselves to be. After all, in one survey, over 77 percent of people rated themselves above average on a skill, when technically only 50 percent would qualify so.

Conceit is thinking we are good and others bad. Confidence is knowing we are good, but we can be better.

Gain realistic self knowledge, and use that information to lead you to a life of constant self-improvement.

The Not to do and Not to Know List

I was talking to a good friend who was interested in many of the things I do. He asked me how much I bought my shoes for. I said I honestly don’t know. My wife bought it for me. He asked me how much was the tuition of my children in that particular school. I told him I also don’t know. He also asked me how much was the plane fare I paid for the last trip I took. I said the office got that, but also I didn’t really know.

He was looking at me curiously, and I knew I had to come up with an explanation. I told him I trust my wife to make these judgments, and if it is something I don’t need to know, I told her she did not have to tell me. I said I had to remember too many things in the office that I did not want to cram to my head too much information . Anyway, I know where to look for the information should I need to know.

This attitude was probably inculcated from me from some of the books I read, particularly Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes series. Sherlock Holmes  is the classic detective well known for his observation powers, great memory, and clear logic. I remember there was a passage where they were talking about the planets of the solar system, and the stars, and after making the inquiries, Sherlock Holmes announced that now he knew, he would take effort to forget what he has been told.

When asked by Dr. Watson why, he said that while knowing the planets were interesting, he failed to see what good it would do in his crime detection work, and therefore did not want to put his head to remembering these ‘useless’ facts. Not having to remember useless facts means his head could also remember the useful facts better, he said.

There are so many things to know or to do.  It is easy to get defocus.

We should remind ourselves that what is not worth doing, is not worth doing well.

The first thing towards excellence is to focus your energies on the things worth doing.

The Most Important Point

I have 3 sons. My eldest as of this writing is 12, and my youngest 5.

The youngest one wants to get everything his brothers have. When we buy some books for the first one, he also wants to have his book ( even if he does not know how to read). He also wants to play with the computer ( even if he does not know how to operate). He wants to get his share of TV, his share of food, his share of toys, and his share of attention.

He plays with the video machine, or the computer and does not know what exactly is the objective of the game. But he gains pleasure in able to control the movements, and influence the cursor.

His constant scream is “Let me participate. Let me be part of it. Let me feel important! See me influence and control the computer and do this! I want to do everything my brother does, and I can do it better! ”

When we grow up, we will be able to do a better job to mask our emotions, and we will also be able to reveal less of our natural selves especially if we are not with our own family.

But the constant scream in all of us , “I want to be part, I am as important and as capable a member than anybody, I want to feel important” will still be there, and is an important need for everybody and ourselves that we need to recognize if we want to be successful in our interrelationships.

History is replete with examples how people will go to great lengths and sacrifices to assert their pride and dignity. We all have this innate need to feel that we matter.

The person who knows how to manage this within himself, and in his interrelationships with others will be the more successful manager and businessman.